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Ikea’s new 3D App – Augmented Reality Furniture

Walking around IKEA, you spot a striking chair and think this will look great in my living room. You get it home and then reality hits – the colours are wrong or it doesn’t fit! IKEA are here to solve your problems with their incredible new app.

The Technology

Augmented reality basically means combining the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’ to generate 3D images on top of an image by using a device in real time. This gets the images and objects to ‘interact’ on the screen.

How do I use the app?

You will need IKEA’s catalogue and a smartphone or a tablet. Grab your catalogue and when you come across the plus icon on a page, hover your phone or tablet over it using the app until a screen pops up. At this time, users will see the bonus features including 360-degree view of a room, videos, product information or the option to place a piece of furniture in their room. The latter is the option you’re looking for.

When you find the product you wish to test out, all you have to do is place the catalogue, open the app, point the camera to position it and voila the product will appear in place. At the moment, there are only 100 products available for this option, but the way this app is looking, were sure they will add more in the future.

The Images

The images are reasonably realistic and they have worked with their 3D specialists to make sure that the textures also look realistic. The only downfall is the slight variation between the colour of the furniture on screen and the colour of the real piece in your home lighting.

The app will be available from August 25th and were all excited to try it out! We think this will be the next big thing for home décor companies to get involved in, what do you think?